What is the ruling on university education or in other institutions?

The questioner : The second question: What is the ruling on university education or studying in it or in other institutions? And how can one respond to those who say that preventing university education or studying means the sons of Muslims will remain in their ignorance, and there will be no doctors, professors, or engineers, and so on, and this means they will not occupy the positions when the Islamic state is established, and they will remain forever in the hands of the disbelievers?

The Shaykh : The question contains a bit of ambiguity, although its intended meaning is clear.
Any beneficial knowledge is permissible to learn in Islam; indeed, it may be an obligatory duty or a collective obligation (fard kifayah) that requires some members of the community to learn some of it to the extent the community needs it. It is a collective obligation: if some people fulfill it, it is lifted from the rest, but if they all delay, they are all sinful. This is an established jurisprudential fact, without doubt or ambiguity. However, what should be clarified, and what many who claim Islam and calling to Islam and the like overlook or ignore, is that it is not permissible to commit what is not permissible in Islam, or what is forbidden, in the pursuit of acquiring collective obligatory knowledge. So your question now: studying or entering universities or institutions, we say as a matter of course that there is no objection to this for acquiring knowledge, as long as this knowledge is beneficial and not harmful. But what emerges from a question like this is that the intended university education is that which involves the mixing of males and females, young men with young women; and in that case, harms and trials occur in universities and institutions in the name of seeking knowledge, which is a collective obligation as we said earlier. In that case, we say: it is not permissible for a Muslim man or woman to expose himself or herself to trial to acquire what is not individually obligatory for him or her. Is this clear?

The questioner : Understood.

The Shaykh : It is clear. As for the doubt that arises here now, which you mentioned; this doubt does not apply to one who says that seeking knowledge is a collective obligation, but rather to one who says we do not want this knowledge at all. In that case, it is said: what you mentioned about them, that these positions which require these sciences are occupied and adopted by those who are not Muslim or are not righteous among the Muslims. But we do not say that it is not permissible to learn these beneficial sciences; rather, we say the opposite, except with the aforementioned condition; which is that there be no violation of the Shari'ah. I gave a famous example of this today—and the disagreement still exists among Muslims themselves—whether it is permissible for a Muslim to enter the university in order to acquire those sciences that are necessary for the establishment of the Muslim state?
We say: Yes, this is permissible, indeed it is a collective obligation with the aforementioned condition. So the mixing of young men with young women is not permissible in Islam. In that case, it is not permissible for a young Muslim man to get involved and enroll in a university that has this mixing just in order to acquire collective obligatory knowledge.
Many young Muslims—for example—enter universities and specialize—for example—in studying; knowing that the sciences taught there, such as economics, for example, they study there—or commerce—they study there riba (usury or interest) and its sections and types and how... and I do not know the details, I am not in need of them. This is not permissible in Islam; because riba is forbidden. So does he study what Allah has forbidden and it is said this is necessary? The answer: No...